delivered the opinion of the court.
To refer to the principal state law relating to these suits, to the pleadings and the decision of the court below, will make the issues in these cases clear and point directly to the elements required to be considered in deciding them.
West Virginia in February, 1913, enacted a prohibition *316 law to go into effect on July 1st of the following year. Code 1913, c. 32A. Putting out of view the right of druggists under stringent regulations provided by the statute to sell for medicinal purposes and the right otherwise to sell wine for sacramental and alcohol for scientific and manufacturing purposes, the law forbade “the manufacture, sale, keeping or storing for sale in this state, or offering or exposing for sale” intoxicating liquors, and the intoxicants embraced were comprehensively defined. The statute contained many restrictions concerning hotels, restaurants, clubs and so-called associations where liquor was kept and served either as a result of membership or by gift or otherwise, which were evidently intended to prevent the frustration of the prohibitions against the keeping of intoxicants for sale and purchase by subterfuge in the guise of the exercise of an individual right. There was no express prohibition against the individual right to use intoxicants and none implied unless that result arose (a) from the prohibition in universal terms of all sales and purchases of liquor within the State, (b) from the clause providing that every delivery made in the State by a сommon. or other carrier of the prohibited intoxicants should be.considered as a consummation of a sale made in the State a't the point of delivery, and (c) from the prohibitions which the statute contained against solicitations made to induce purchases of liquor and against the publication in the State of all circulars, advertisements, price-lists, etc., which might tend to stimulate purchases of liquor.
Under this statute and in reliance upon the provisions of the act of Congress known as the Webb-Kenyon Law (Act of Congress of March 1,1913, 37 Stat. 699), the State of West Virginia in one of its' courts sued the Western Maryland Railway Company and the Adams Express Company to enjoin them from cаrrying from Maryland into West Virginia liquor in violation of law. In sub *317 stance it was charged that very many shipments had been taken by the carriers contrary to the law both as. to solicitations and as to the use for which the liquor was intended. Preliminary injunctions were issued restraining the carrying of liquor into the State subject to many conditions as to investigation, etc., etc. With these injunctions in force, these suits were commenced by the Clark Distilling Company to compel the carriers to take a shipment of liquor which it was asserted was ordered for personal use and deliver it in West Virginia, on the ground that the Act of Congress to Regulate Commerce imposed the duty to receive and carry and that besides the Wеst Virginia prohibition law when, rightly construed did not forbid it. The carriers, not challenging the asserted meaning of the West Virginia law, set up the injunctions and averred that to receive and carry the liquor would violate their provisions and therefore there was no duty under the'United States law to do so. West Virginia intervened in the suits, relying upon the state law and the injunctions which had been issued. At the trial it was shown that the plaintiff Distilling Company had systematically solicited purchases and constantly shipped liquor from Maryland into West Virginia in violation of the prohibition law. The court held that the West Virginia law did not prohibit personal use, and did not forbid shipments for such use and that as there was no state prohibition, the Webb-Kenyon Law had no application, and that as the solicitations forbidden by the state statute were solicitations to do that which was forbidden, that consideration was irrelevant. The construction of the statute made by the state court was held not authoritatively binding, as that court was not one of last resort, and the right to practically modify the injunctions was declared to exist because West Virginia by making herself a party to the suits had submitted herself to the jurisdiction of the court. All questions concerning the power of the State of West Virginia *318 to pass the prohibition law if it meant otherwise, and of the right of Congress to adopt the Webb-Kenyon Act under a like hypothesis, were reserved. 219 Fed. Rеp. 333. Before the decrees entered became final the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a case pending before it (West Virginia v. Adams Express Company, 219 Fed. Rep. 794) decided directly to the contrary. It held that the law of West Virginia did prohibit shipments for personal use; that it did forbid solicitations therefore for such purchases; that by operation of the Webb-Kenyon Act there was no longer a right to ship liquor into the State in violation of its laws; and that both the state law and the Webb-Kenyon Act were constitutional. Controlled by such decision, the trial court recalled its opinion, heard a re-argument, and, although not changing its view, accepted and gave effect to the conclusions reаched by the Circuit Court .of Appeals because they were deemed to be authoritative, and the cases were brought directly here, because of the constitutional questions, to review such action.
The issues to be decided may be embraced in four propositions which we proceed separately to consider.
The difference as to the meaning of the statute in the court below was whether or not the West Virginia law prohibited the receipt of liquor for personal use; and if it did, whether or not the prohibitions of the law equally applied to shipments from outside and to those originаting in the State. But the possibility of dispute over these subjects no longer exists because after the decision below and since the cases were first argued (for they have been here argued twice) the State of West Virginia amended the statute so as to leave no room for doubt that it does forbid all shipments, whether for personal use or otherwise, arid whether from within or without the State. The pertinent *319 provisions of the amendments are placed in the margin. 1 As the relief sought is the permanent right to ship in the future, the meaning of the statute now, that is, as amended, is the test by which we must consider the questions requiring solution. Indeed, this is frankly admitted by the *320 parties since it is unequivocally declared that the question is the operation and effect' of the statute as amended and its constitutionality. We therefore come to the second question, which is:
That government can, consistently with the due process clause, forbid the manufacture and sale of liquor and regulate its traffic, is not open to controversy; and that there goes along with this power full police authority to make it effective, is also not open. Whether the general authority includes the right to forbid individual use, we need not considеr, since clearly - there would be power, as an incident to the right to forbid manufacture and sale, to restrict the means by. which intoxicants for personal use could be obtained, even if such use was permitted. This being true, there can be no doubt that the West Virginia prohibition law did not offend against the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
But that it was a direct burden upon interstate commerce and conflicted with the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the several States, and therefore could not be used to prevent interstate shipments from Maryland into West Virginia, has been not open to question since the decision in
Leisy
v.
Hardin,
Omitting words irrelevant to the subject now under consideration, the title and text of the Webb-Kenyon Act are as follows:
“An Act Divesting intoxicating liquors of their interstate character in certain cases.
“ ... That the shipment or transpоrtation, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, of any spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquor of any kind, from one State, Territory, or District of the United States, . . . into any other State, Territory, or District of the United States, . . : which said spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquor is intended, by any person interested therein, to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used, either in the original package or Otherwise, in violation of any Jaw of such State, Territory, or District of the United States, ... is hereby prohibited.”
As the state law forbade the shipment into or transportation of liquor in the State whether from inside or out, and all receipt and possession of liquor so transported without regard to the use to which the liquor was to be .put, and as the Webb-Kenyon Act prohibited the transportation in interstate commerce of all liquor “intended . . . to be received, possessed, sold, or in any manner used, either in the original package or otherwise, in violation of any law of such State,” there would seem *322 to be no room for doubt that the prohibitions of the state law were made applicable by the Webb-Kenyon Law. If that law was valid, therefore, the state law was not repugnant to the commerce clause. It is insisted that this view gives too wide an effect to the Webb-Kenyon Law since that act was only intended to include state prohibitions in sо far as they forbade the shipment, receipt and possession of liquor for a forbidden use, and hence as individual use was not forbidden by the state law, the shipment, receipt and possession for such use was not embraced by the Webb-Kenyon Act and the state law, so far as it was outside of that act, was repugnant to the commerce clause. This is sought to be supported by the historical environment of the Webb-Kenyon Act as evidenced by the debates on its passage and by a decision of this court, as well as decisions of state courts (which are in the margin 1 ) which, it is insisted, have so construed that act.
Assuming, for the sake of argument only, that the debates may be resorted to for the purpose of showing environment, we аre of opinion they clearly establish a result directly contrary to that which they are cited to maintain. Undoubtedly they show that it was insisted the act was not intended to interfere with personal use, as of course it was not, since its only purpose was to give effect to state prohibitions, not to compel the States to prohibit personal use. Indeed, the meaning which it is sought to affix to the Webb-Kenyon Act, if accepted, would cause that act to have the effect of compelling the States to prohibit personal use, since if all the prohibitions of state laws against manufacture, sale, receipt and possession of intoxicants remained subject to the danger of indirect *323 violation by permitting shipment, receipt and possession for personal use, it would follow that a necessary and immediate incentive was imposed upon the States by the Webb-Kenyon Act to enact a provision against personal use.
The antecedents of the Webb-Kenyon Act, that is, its legislative and judicial progenitors, leave no room for the contention made. To correct the great evil which was asserted to arise from the right to ship liquor into a State through the channels of interstate commerce and there receive and sell the same in the original package in violation of state prohibitions, was indisputably the purpоse which led to the enactment of the Wilson Law (Act of Congress of August 8, 1890, 26 Stat. 313) forbidding the sale of liquor in a State in the original package even although brought in through interstate commerce when the existing dr future state laws forbade sales of intoxicants. And this was recognized by the long line of decisions (a few of the leading cases are in the margin
1
) which upheld that law and pointed out that it permitted the state prohibitions to take away from interstate commerce shipments a right which they otherwise would have embraced, that is, the right to sell after receipt in the original package, any state law to- the contrary nothwithstanding. At the same time it was recognized, however, that as the right tо receive liquor was not affected by the Wilson Act, such receipt and the possession following from it and the resulting right to use remained protected by the commerce clause even in a State where what is known as the dispensary system prevailed.
Vance
v.
Vandercook Company,
The case in this court relied upon to establish the contrary
(Adams Express Company
v.
Kentucky,
The movement of liquor in interstate commerce and the receipt and possession and right to sell prohibited by the state law having been in express terms divested by the Webb-Kenyon Act of their interstate commerce character, it follows that if . that act was within the power of Congress to adopt, there is no possible reason for holding that to enforce the prohibitions of the state law would conflict with the commerce clause of the Constitution; and this brings us to the last question, which is:
We are not unmindful, that opinions adverse to the power of Congress to enact the law were formed and expressed in other departments of the government. Opinion of the Attorney General, 30 Op. A. G. 88; Yeto Message of the President, Cong. Rec.j vol. 49, pt. 5, p. 4291. We are additionally conscious, therefore, of the responsibility of determining these issues and of their serious character.
It is not in the slightest degree disputed that if Congress had prohibited the shipment of all intoxicants in the channels of interstate commerce and therefore had prevented all movement between the several States, such action would have been lawful because within the power
*326
to regulate which the Constitution conferred.
Lottery Case,
The power conferred is to regulate, and the very terms of the grant would seem to repel the contention that only prohibition of movement in interstate commerce was embraced. And the cogency of this is manifest since if the doctrine were applied to those manifold and important subjects of interstate commerce as to which Congress from the beginning has regulated, not prohibited, the existence of government under the Constitution would be no longer possible.
The argument as to delegation to the States rests upon a mere misconception. It is true the regulation which the Webb-Kenyon Act contains permits state prohibitions to apply tо movements of liquor from one State into another, but the will which causes the-prohibitions to be applicable is that of Congress, since the application of state prohibitions would cease the instant the act of Congress ceased to apply. In fact the contention previously made that the prohibitions of the state law were not applicable to the extent that they were broader than the Webb-Kenyon Act is in direct conflict with the proposition as to delegation now made.
So far as uniformity is concerned, there is no question *327 that the act uniformly applies to the conditions which call its provisions into play — that its provisions apply to all the States, — so that the question really is a complaint as to. the want of uniform existence of things to which the act applies and not to an absence of uniformity in the act itself. But aside from this it is obvious that the argument seeks to engraft upon the Constitution a restriction not found in it, that is, that the power to regulate conferred upon Congress obtains subject to the requirement that regulations enacted shall be uniform throughout the United States. In view of the conceded power on the part of Congress to prohibit the movement of intoxicants in interstate commerce, we cannot admit that because it did not exert its authority to the full limit, but simply regulated to the extent of permitting the prohibitions in one State to prevent the use of intеrstate commerce to ship liquor from another State, Congress exceeded its authority to regulate. We can see, therefore, no force in the argument relied upon tested from the point of view of reason, and we come to the question of authority.
It is settled, says the argument, that interstate commerce is divided into two great classes, one embracing subjects which do not exact uniformity and which, although subject to the regulation of Congress, are in the absence of such regulation subject to the control of the several States
(Cooley
v.
Board of Wardens,
Thus it follows that although we accept the classification of interstate .commerce in intoxicants made in Leisy v. Hardin, we could not accept the contention which, is now based upon that classification without in effect overruling that case, or what is equivalent theretо, refusing to give effect to the doctrine of that case announced-in terms so certain that there is no room for controversy or contention concerning them. But we would be required to go further than this, since it would result that we would have to shut our eyes to the construction put upon, the *330 ruling in Leisy v. Hardin by Congress in legislating when it adopted the Wilson Act and also to practically overrule the line of decisions which we have already referred to sustaining and enforcing that act. Let us see if this is not certain. As we have already pointed out, the very regulation made by Congress in enacting the. Wilson Law to minimize the evil resulting from violating prohibitions of state law by; sending liquor through interstate commerce into a State and selling it in violation of such law was to divest such shipments of their interstate commerce character and to strip them of the right to be sold in the original package free from state authority which otherwise would have obtained. And that Congress had the right to enact this legislation making existing and future state prohibitions applicable, was the express result of the decided cases to which we have referred, beginning with In re Rahrer, supra. As the power to regulate which was manifested in the Wilson Act and that which was exerted in enacting the Webb-Kenyon Law are essentially identical, the one being but a larger degree of exertion of the identical power which was brought into play in the other, we are. unable to understand upon what principle we could hold that the one was not a regulation without holding that the other had the same infirmity, a result which, as we haye previously said, would reverse Leisy v. Hardin and overthrow the many adjudications of this court sustaining the Wilson Act.
These considerations 'dispose of the contention, but we do not stop with stating them but recur again to the reason of things for the purpose of pointing out the fundamental error upon which the contention rests.' It is this: The mistaken assumption that the accidental considerations which cause a subject on the one hand to come under state control in the absence of congressional regulation, and other subjects on the contrary to be free from state control until Congress has acted, are the essential criteria by which to test the question of the power of Congress to *331 regulate and the mode in which the exertion of that power may be manifested. The two things are widely different, since the right to regulate and its scope-and the mode of exertion must depend upon the. power possessed by Congress over the subject regulated. Following the unerring path pointed out by that great principle we can see no reason for saying that although Congress'in view of the nature and character of intoxicants had a power to forbid their movement in interstate сommerce, it had not the authority to so deal with the subject as to establish a regulation (which is what was done by the Webb-Kenyon Law) making it impossible for one State to violate the prohibitions of the laws of another through the channels of interstate commerce. Indeed, we can see no escape from the conclusion that if we accepted the proposition urged, we would be obliged to announce the contradiction in terms that because Congress had exerted a regulation lesser in power than it was authorized to exert, therefore its action was void for excess of power. Or, in other words, stating the necessary result of the argument from a сoncrete consideration of the particular subject here involved, that because Congress in adopting a regulation had considered the nature and character of our dual system of government, State and Nation, and instead of absolutely prohibiting, had so conformed its regulation as to produce cooperation between the local and national forces of government to the end of preserving the rights of all, it had thereby transcended the complete and perfect power of regulation conferred by the Constitution. And it is well again to point out that this abnormal result to which the argument leads concerns a subject as to which both State and Nation in their respective spheres of authority possessed the supremest authority before the action of Congress which is complained of, and hence the argument virtually comes to the assertion that in some undisclosed way by the exertion of congressional authority, power possessed has evaporated.
*332 It is only necessary to point out that the considerations which we have stated dispose of all contentions that the Webb-Kenyon Act is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment,, since what we have said concerning that clause, in the Fourteenth Amendment as applied to state power is decisive.
Before cоncluding We come to consider what we deem to be arguments of inconvenience which are relied upon, that is, the dread expressed that the power by regulation to allow state prohibitions to attach to the movement of intoxicants lays the basis for subjecting interstate commerce in all articles to state control and therefore destroys the Constitution. The want of force in the suggested inconvenience becomes patent by considering the principle which after all dominates and .controls the question here presented, that is, the subject regulated and the extreme power to which that subject may be subjected. The fact that regulations оf liquor have been upheld in numberless instances which would have been repugnant to the great guarantees of the Constitution but for the enlarged right possessed by government to regulate liquor, has never that we are aware of been taken as affording the basis for the thought that government might exert an enlarged power as to subjects to which under the constitutional guarantees such enlarged power could not be applied. In other words, the exceptional nature of the subject here regulated is the basis upon which the exceptional power exerted must rest and affords no ground for any fear that such power may be constitutionally extended to things which it may not, сonsistently with the guarantees of the Constitution, embrace.
Affirmed.
Notes
“Sec. 7. It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or have, for personal use or otherwise, or to use, or permit another to have, keep or use, intoxicating liquors at any restaurant, store, office building, club, place where soft drinks are sold (except a drug store may have and sell alcohol and wine as provided by sections four and twenty-four), fruit stand, news stand, room, or place where bowling alleys, billiard or pool tables are maintained, livery stable, boat house, public building, park, road, street or alley. It shall also be unlawful for any person to give or furnish to another intoxicating liquors, except as otherwise hereinafter provided in this section. Any one violating this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than five' hundred dollars, and'be imprisoned in the county jail not less than two nor more than six months; provided, however, that nothing con-' tained in this section shall prevent-one, in his home, from having and there giving to another intoxicating liquors when such having or giving is in no way a shift, scheme or device to evade the provisions of this act; but the word ‘home’ as used herein, shall not be construed to be one’s club, place of common resort, or room of a transient guest in a hotel or boarding house. And, provided, further, that no common carrier, for hire, nor other person, for hire or without hire, shall bring or carry into this state, or carry from one place to another within the state, intoxicating liquors for another, even when intended for personal use; except a common carrier may, for hire, carry pure gyain alcohol and wine, and such preparations as may be sold by druggists for the special purposes and in the manner as set forth in sections four and twenty-four; and, provided, further, however, that in case of search and seizure, the finding of any liquors shall be- prima facie evidence that 'the same are being kept and stored for unlawful purposes.”
“Sec. 34. It shall be unlawful for any person in this state to receive, directly or indirectly, intoxicating liquors from a commоn, or other carrier. It shall also be unlawful for any person in this state to possess intoxicating liquors, received directly or indirectly from a common, or other carrier in this state. -This section shall apply to such liquors intended for personal use, as well as otherwise, and to interstate, as *320 well as intrastate, shipments or carriage. Any person violating this section shall be guilty of- a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two hundred dollars, and in addition thereto may be imprisoned not more than three months; provided, however, that druggists may receive and possess pure grain alcohol, wine-and such preparations as may be sold by druggists for the special purpose and in the manner as set forth in sections four and twenty-four.”
Van Winkle
v.
State,
In re Rahrer,